


Double Helix

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: DNA Testing, Extra Treat, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Magnificent Bastard Tarkin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-08 00:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12243639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Tarkin discovers something interesting about the Death Star's newest prisoner.





	Double Helix

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AceQueenKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/gifts).



"Sir." Tarkin turned. The young ensign met his eyes nervously.

"Report."

The ensign handed over a data chip. "The interrogation droid's full results are ready for your inspection."

Tarkin examined the chip without inserting it into his console. "Dismissed, Ensign."

The boy hurried off, relieved to be away. The Empire recruited young children these days, shoving the best and brightest of the worst and dullest into the Academies, and making do with the extruded results when they graduated. Or maybe he was just getting older.

When he was alone, he inserted the chip. He expected no useful information, and he was not disappointed. Alderaan had long been under suspicion of aiding the Rebellion. Vader had caught young Senator Organa fleeing Scarif with her Rebel friends. The girl insisted she'd been on a diplomatic mission unrelated to the Scarif debacle, and no amount of pain or medication would change her story. She'd been trained to withstand Imperial torture. He had no doubt she was proud of herself.

He briefly scanned the medical information the droid had collected.

He scanned it again, pulse racing.

Droids varied. Some were unfortunately overblessed with as much individual personality as their electronic brains could provide. Others were automatons, programmed for a single task, relentless in their work. The interrogation droid would not have any opinion on a genetic match between the prisoner and another patient in the space station's medical database. The IT-O collected the information with respiration, blood iron content, and sweat output, and would be as disinterested.

A close genetic match to Vader. Fascinating. The Emperor's dark pet had expressed nothing but contempt for the Organa girl. Did he suspect, or was his hate that of a jilted lover seeing what he believed to be the offspring of his rival?

Tarkin tapped his thin lips with his forefinger. Information was power. Information he owned that Vader did not would put him in a position of power with the Emperor, but only if it was the right information.

He pulled up Organa's official biography from her senatorial records.

Her birth date was listed a few days before the establishment of the Empire, but records could be changed or faked. Queen Breha had ruled an influential Core planet. She could easily say her daughter's birth happened at any time, and that would stand. She could claim her consort as the father, and he would have to accept the child as his own. Small matter now that she and he and all their treasonous world were nought but ash and rubble.

There were no records of Vader before the Empire. It was as if he'd sprung full-grown, birthed from the Emperor's dark heart. That was a story Tarkin allowed superstitious underlings to believe. Vader required regular medical treatments for that life support system he wore to function. There was a man under the dark armor, no matter how broken in body and twisted in mind by the mad, dead religion he followed. Tarkin had never cared to learn who that man had been, and his own disinterest was self-preservation: the Emperor would tell if he wanted others to know. Ignorance implied deliberacy.

Never before had Tarkin any need to be curious.

His codes were strong enough to access nearly any database under the Empire's control. He remembered the early days, remembered the fall of all those adherents of the same dead religion. The librarian at the old Jedi Temple had successfully destroyed some of the records before she'd been stopped. No one had any use for the old medical records, and they had been archived and forgotten.

There was no intrinsic harm in cross-referencing Organa's DNA sample with the legacy database. Tarkin could claim he'd merely been following a lead on the girl, chasing a rumor that she was the bastard of some slain Jedi.

His search returned with a name.

Tarkin knew that name. He allowed himself one tight smile.

The girl was scheduled to be executed. Tarkin could hold on to his information, savoring the delayed pleasure of its reveal. Organa was a traitor to the Empire. In an hour, she'd be led in front of a firing squad and relieved of her life, and only when she lay dead would Tarkin lean over to Vader and tell him in all innocence that he'd discovered the girl had been the daughter of a Jedi named Skywalker.

An alarm beeped at him. He dismissed the happy fantasy from his mind. There'd been an escape from the detention area.

His plan would have to wait.


End file.
